


All He Deserves

by swooning



Series: A Song of More Satisfying Endings [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Implied Arya Stark/Yara Greyjoy, Jaime Lannister human disaster, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Post-Season/Series 08, Season 8 was stupid, Slow Burn, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:00:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28497219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swooning/pseuds/swooning
Summary: A surprising number of deaths were faked in the fall of the Red Keep. When presented with a Jaime who is very much alive, Brienne has a choice to make: rectify the situation by killing him on the spot...or keep him for a while so she can ponder the decision at leisure.She keeps him. But she’ll most likely kill him in the morning.**New chapters will be posted on Saturdays, more or less.**
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: A Song of More Satisfying Endings [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2087454
Comments: 58
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Season 8 was stupid, so I will pick and choose what I retain from it. Nevertheless, there are possible spoilers through the end of the series. Be patient and you will eventually be rewarded with a great deal of lovingly crafted smut. For a preview of said smut, see the related one-off “Fitting,” set in this same universe, in which Jaime gets the pegging he so richly deserves.

By the time they’d reached Dorne, Jaime was tired. Of traveling over rough land, of hiding from everyone they neared, and of Cersei. Most of all Cersei. 

If he’d had the nerve, he’d have left her in King’s Landing to fend for herself. She’d never have kept his survival a secret, though, so it was just as well. He’d helped her stage their deaths by dressing two charred peasant corpses in their clothing and putting them under the fallen rocks. He’d helped her get all the way south to Sunspear, to the ship that would take her far from Westeros. He’d even helped secure her a more acceptable dress and a wide Dornish scarf to disguise herself in, when she’d complained about the dead peasant’s dress stinking like a charnel house. 

But he had kept only one thought in his mind the entire time, the same thought that had plagued him since leaving Winterfell and especially since arriving at King’s Landing and seeing his sister again. He thought of Brienne, draped in black against a snowy courtyard, her face a mask of anguish, her voice breaking as she pleaded with him not to leave. He thought of Brienne, and of how he should never have left her side, and how if he could only see her again he might somehow, someday, earn something like forgiveness and a chance to see her happy again. It was a slim chance, but it existed. Not because he deserved it — he manifestly did not. But because she was that good. He wasn’t too proud to take advantage of that.

Even now, in the cabin as the ship prepared to embark, Cersei was unhappy, as he now knew she would always, always be. 

“How do they bear it?” She shut the cabin hatch and unwound the scarf from her head and shoulders. “It’s too hot to live out there, and it’s stifling in here. And this is cold for Dorne, the sailors say.”

She wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t inclined to give her the satisfaction of hearing that. “It’s certainly pleasant compared to the last time I was here.” He stared out the porthole at the wharf, gathering his resolve. This one last confrontation, then he would be free. 

Cersei endeavored to fold the long, wide scarf. “You haven’t even gone outside.”

“I’ll go out later, after it’s full dark. I’m known here.” He held up his truncated arm, knowing she hated to be reminded of it. “And it’s hard to hide this.”

“You need a new hand. When we get to Volantis, we can have a new one made.”

He didn’t answer, just toyed with the flap of fabric pinned over the stump so she might drop the subject all the faster. Sadly, it didn’t work. She flung her scarf aside carelessly and lolled on the bunk. 

“Something lighter, perhaps, this time. Surely Essos has some sort of hardwood that might do. And artisans who could carve you something more graceful.” She sighed and frowned slightly. “Oh…ivory might be suitable. Is it costly there, ivory?”

An ivory hand. As if there wouldn’t be a thousand more pressing needs. And that was that, the opening he had been waiting for. 

He exhaled. “I have no idea. I’ve never been to Essos. I’m sure you’ll find out.”

“With what little coin we have left, I suppose the ivory hand must wait. And new gowns. Although this one is disintegrating, so I’ll need something new soon. Perhaps in Lys?”

Oh, for the love of all the old gods and the new. “Cersei…”

“What?”

He finally shifted his gaze to her, examining her features for the last time. She was pouting at him. 

“What?” she demanded again.

“This is where I leave you. Whatever you purchase in Lys or Volantis will be your own affair.” A weight fell from his shoulders, a giddy relief that carried him to his feet. He hefted his single bag, which he’d never unpacked, across his shoulder.

“You can’t mean this,” she said breathlessly, blinking at him in disbelief “You came back. Jaime. You came back for me. For us. We were the only thing that mattered.”

“I came to get you out of harm’s way. I’ve done that.” He pulled his sword across the bunk, rearranged the rags he’d wrapped around it to mask its value, and maneuvered it into place in the loop on his belt. “You’ll come to less harm traveling alone from this point on. Anybody who might be looking would be looking for both of us together, not a woman traveling alone.”

“You’ll come to Volantis some other way, then.” The truth finally seemed to be dawning on her, though. Her face went slack and dull, all her practiced expressions abandoned in the face of this new reality.

“No.” He was already to the door, his hand on the latch. “I’ve left most of the gold for you, and a good dagger. You might consider stopping in Lys, not going on to Volantis at all. It’s less predictable. The Lyseni are fair so you’ll blend in, the climate is mild, and the place runs on money not bloodlines. After a time I can treat with the Iron Bank to send you funds, and you can buy all the safety you’ll ever need.”

This was probably not true. She would only be as safe as she was careful, and he doubted Cersei would be careful. She thrived on attention too much to deprive herself of it for long. And Bran Stark would probably know where to find both of them if he chose to, no matter where they went. At least if the stories were true. 

She seemed frozen to the bunk, her hands knotted into the scarf she’d dropped earlier. “What you said when the rocks fell…”

“I thought we were dead. I didn’t want you to die thinking…you were alone. But we lived.”

“And what of this child?” She pressed a hand to her belly, making another prettily distressed face he knew she’d practiced in the mirror. It was as false as everything else about her, and he only wished he’d realized the difference sooner. Months sooner. Years sooner. The moment he’d met a woman who was incapable of falsehood. 

“Cersei, you and I have had three children. I watched you carry them and watched you birth them. Do you honestly believe I haven’t paid attention to the passage of time since you announced this?” He dropped his hand from the door and faced her head-on, needing her to grasp what he said before he left her. “I lied too, did you know? I truly did believe you. I came back in part because of that, because I felt a duty to the child, if not to you. And when I arrived, although it had been months, your belly was still flat. There was never a baby. I was a fool to think there was, to think that you wouldn’t lie to me as you had about everything else. You sent a sellsword to kill me and our brother, and still I came back. I got you out of the keep, I brought you here…and now I’m through with you. You won’t see me again. Do you understand?”

She turned away from him slowly, gazing out into the gathering darkness. She didn’t answer. 

After a moment, he realized it didn’t matter whether she responded or not. He was done with her. He wrapped his own scarf around his head to cover everything but his eyes, then left the cabin and the ship without looking back once. 

Even at dusk, the air of Sunspear was so hot it felt strangely thick to breathe. Truly, though, not anything like as hot as it had been the last time Jaime had visited. Winter of a sort had come to Dorne, even if it was still warmer than summer in the North. 

The scarf itched across his brow and bothered the backs of his ears, but it kept the sweat from dripping and filtered the sand that would otherwise end up in his nose and between his teeth. And it hid his fair hair and all too recognizable face. 

From the ship he’d left Cersei on, he made his way along the waterfront to another that would take him north again. He couldn’t return to King’s Landing, not if he valued his life—and he did, he still did, though his life’s purpose had changed so much he hardly recognized himself. But Brienne wouldn’t have stayed in Winterfell once news of Cersei’s defeat had reached her. She and the Stark girl would want to be there in King’s Landing to help sort out the mess. To crown a new King. 

Everyone would want to be there. Sansa Stark might even make a play for the throne. Brienne would never let her do that alone. 

On the new ship he boarded, he had no private berth, only a rough bunk among the crew. It was the best he could secure on short notice. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except going north again and trying to pick up the thread of the new life he’d started to weave in his own mind over the course of those weeks in Winterfell. 

The rest of that life would probably be very short, because Ser Brienne of Tarth would most likely kill him on sight. But he would have achieved his purpose. She would know he’d come back for her. She would know he had loved her. That he regretted ever leaving, ever being stupid enough to think that Cersei deserved rescuing. Ever being stupid enough to put anyone before Brienne. 

If she didn’t kill him immediately—although she would, of course she would, and rightly so—she would definitely do so after learning that he’d let Cersei live. That he’d helped her escape not only King’s Landing but Westeros entirely. He would have to answer for that. But at least he would see Brienne one more time first. Her fine, silky hair clinging to the sweat on her face, holding an awkward curl at the back from where her helmet sat. Her nose and cheeks red from the cold, over the existing crop of freckles. Her eyes, too pale to be any color at all, really. The perfect angle of her sword arm as she swung for his neck. 

What a way to go.


	2. Chapter 2

When the clouds parted in the late afternoon, the blue sky over the Kingsroad looked strange, too limitless, too colorful against the bleak winter landscape. Brienne’s armor sparkled in the sudden sunlight, ice crystals catching the light like a million tiny gems. 

Brienne supposed it was beautiful. Holding one arm up, she observed the shimmering display and tried to see it as anything other than cold. 

Unsuccessful, exhausted by the effort, she replaced her hand on the pommel and shifted uneasily in the saddle. Despite the unexpected break in the clouds, the fiercely purposeful mood of Sansa’s entourage and the Northern army that surrounded them, she still felt the darkness around her. Brooding. Biding its time until a moment of weakness...such as finding it exhausting to hold one arm at shoulder height for a few seconds. Because of the cold. 

_Shit._

“We need to stop.” She pulled up and let the wheelhouse come abreast of her so she could rap on a window. After a moment, one of Sansa’s bannermen popped his head out, squinting against the wind. 

“We will stop by the stream here and make camp for the night,” Brienne informed him. She rode ahead before he had a chance to question her. Not that they tended to question her these days. 

Calls rang out up and down the string of wagons and outriders, happy and relieved voices strangely muffled over the soft, fresh snow. They changed course to angle into the clearing Brienne pointed out. It was a wide, well-trodden break in the woods beside the road, with evidence of many campfires past. 

The mechanisms of the troop operated smoothly by this point in the long trek south. A squire’s hand was ready at her horse’s bridle when Brienne dismounted, and a pair of young soldiers was already hard at work erecting her tent. A larger group wrestled against the wind to raise Sansa’s pavilion; she didn’t care for sleeping in the wheelhouse, which was more practical than grand. Fires were built, a watch was set, all without Brienne having to say a word. 

She caught her squire’s eye as the girl trotted back from delivering their horses to the line. “I’ll need both trunks and you to attend me. I want to take this armor off and stow it.” 

“Yes, Ser!” 

The girl darted off toward the wagons. Brienne knew she would have the trunks back to the tent before the last stake was driven in, cudgeling passersby into helping her if necessary. Abra was bright, eager, almost frighteningly efficient, and a quick study with the sword. 

Brienne missed Podrick, who might well have brought the wrong trunks and possibly tugged the tent down on them both by accident. She missed his odd humor, his effort, his puppyish devotion.

She missed the warm summer breeze over the southern shore of Tarth, her father raising an eyebrow as she raised her wooden practice sword. 

She missed riding through autumn woods, smell of fallen leaves and woodsmoke, feel of the horse’s coat thickening day by day as the weather cooled. 

She missed a warm bed in the firelight, fur against her back, skin and muscle and heat and intention against her front. Feet brushing feet, legs tangled, fingertips brushing her cheek, a million things she’d never noticed before about a man. A million things she’d never known about herself. 

“Ser?” Abra stood before her, brow furrowed. “Do you feel warm?” 

Of course not. What an odd question. Her very soul was as icebound as the landscape, how could she be warm? But once the girl asked, Brienne realized she’d stopped shivering, and her joints no longer ached with each gust of wind. She no longer felt much of anything. 

“Quite warm,” she confirmed. And light, almost floating. Not at all unpleasant. She tried to pull her gauntlets off. 

Abra nodded. “You’re badly chilled. We need to get you warm right away.” She started calling out names, snapping orders, too brisk and assertive to be denied. Within moments, Brienne was whisked into her tent, armor being pulled off as a brazier was brought in and lit. A soldier whose name Brienne couldn’t recall brought in a cooking pot full of snow. 

“Don’t heat that,” Abra told him when he headed for the brazier. “Just bring it here. Then fetch me any one of Lady Stark’s serving women. Tell them Ser Brienne took a deep chill, they’ll understand.” She never stopped working as she spoke, unstrapping and tugging off heavy plate pieces in record time. A few times her gloves, damp from melting ice, stuck to the armor and she had to pull away hard to free herself. “My Lady, you—Ser—you’ll need to sit here by the fire. You’ve gotten too cold. I shouldn’t have let you wear that armor, even with the heavy gambeson.”

“Let me?” Brienne scoffed. She knew the girl was right, though. The northerners all seemed to know the cold like a long lost cousin. Even those too young to have seen the last winter. 

Abra ignored her words and kept working, first chafing Brienne’s hands and feet with snow—agony, but it brought the blood and heat racing back to her frozen extremities—then tasking Sansa’s servant to procure something hot and restorative to drink, and extra furs. 

When Brienne started shivering again, Abra finally smiled and declared it a good sign. 

Brienne found that difficult to believe. “Everything b-b-burns.”

“Because you can feel your skin again. It’ll pass.” The girl lofted a sleeping fur around Brienne’s shoulders. It had been warming by the fire, and was the best thing Brienne had ever felt. Or nearly so. 

Unable to dry the armor until it thawed, Abra started setting the heavy pieces near the brazier. 

Brienne sipped at the hot drink somebody had pressed into her hands. It was broth, it was paradise, it was liquid sunshine warming her from the inside. Slowly, her trembling eased, although her fingers and toes remained bright red and stinging. Abra assured her that this, too, was a good sign, then poured her a second cup of broth from the pot on the brazier before starting to lay out a set of winter clothes. 

“The leather and mail,” Brienne insisted. 

“You’ll be nearly as cold with the mail.” 

“Enough. I thank you for your quick thinking, I’m sure you’ve saved me several fingers and toes this day, but that doesn’t excuse insolence.”

The rest was understood. _Behave, or it’s back to the needlepoint for you._ Arya Stark had made a squire of this fifteen-year-old girl from among the lesser gentlewomen who attended Sansa at Winterfell, and Sansa had allowed it, but Arya was no longer there to champion her if she was sent back in disgrace. Girls didn’t get to be squires. But then women didn’t get to be knights, either. This was Abra’s only chance and she knew it. 

“Yes, Ser. I beg your pardon. I only wanted to see you safe.” 

Brienne had no inclination to lecture. Night was falling. She was past weary. She still needed to confer with Sansa before she slept. 

“Leave me. Get some food, get warm. Come back within the hour to finish up here.” 

“Yes, Ser. Thank you, Ser.” 

The girl departed as swiftly as if she’d sprouted wings. Brienne rearranged the fur around her to better capture the brazier’s heat, and let the warmth seep through her muscles and down into her bones. Sipping her broth, staring into the flame, she berated herself for ignoring the obvious signs and letting herself nearly freeze to death. She should have known better than to wear plate armor in weather like this.

Armor can’t protect you from yourself. Not even beautiful armor that fit to perfection. Certainly not the nondescript armor she was using again now, which didn’t fit well in the chest but was less inclined to make her feel like wailing or raging every time she looked at it. 

Abra was right, though Brienne hated admitting it. The only enemy that mattered on this journey was the cold, so she should ride into King’s Landing as she had ridden all the other days of this trip before today, sensibly swaddled in wool and fur against the icy wind. Not clad in armor that could only protect her against hypothetical foes. 

Never mind the hairs rising on her nape whenever she contemplated riding into that cursed city. Never mind the uncanny sensation that somebody was out there, lurking in the woods, ready to spring out and attack at any moment. Her sense of some unfinished business grew stronger as they approached King’s Landing, but her job here was to protect Sansa, and she couldn’t do that if she was chilled to death. 

Sighing, Brienne rose, letting the fur tumble from her shoulders to drape over the stool. She stretched, hissing as every muscle in her body complained at once. The fire and broth had done their work—even her fingers and toes had stopped screaming at her—but she didn’t feel truly warm. Hadn’t in weeks. Might never again. 

Her muslin shirt and woolen stockings were thoroughly warm now, so she kept them on and added layers from the things the squire had set out. A warm knitted vest. A padded, long-sleeved tunic, thick woolen breeches, boots lined with wolf fur. All in the dark grays and blues the Starks seemed to favor when not wearing unrelieved black. After a longing gaze at her mail shirt, she put it aside and donned a stiff leather jerkin. It didn’t fit well over the heavy layers, but it didn’t limit her movement and wouldn’t hasten her freezing to death. It would have to do.

Oathkeeper was a comforting weight on her hip once she buckled the belt and the sheath swung into place. The beautiful armor Jaimie had given her, she had left behind in Winterfell, but only a fool would have forsaken a valyrian steel sword for mere heartbreak or pride. 

Gloved and cloaked at last, she ventured from her tent and almost immediately regretted it. The briefly blue sky had turned back to flat, icy grey. The weather was turning, a squall coming on as the sun neared the horizon, and her body wasn’t prepared to take on the cold again so soon. 

She pulled the hood of her fur-lined cloak closer to her ears and made her way to the campfire closest to the large, sturdy, enclosed pavilion where Sansa was probably awaiting her. One of the cooks saw her coming and readied a bowl of whatever they’d been stirring in the huge iron pot. She feared porridge, but it turned out to be a savory stew, rich with what tasted like wild fowl and hare. She bolted it gratefully on her slow walk to the pavilion, then handed the empty bowl to a passing soldier before nodding to the two guards and parting the heavy tent flaps to step inside. 


	3. Chapter 3

After weeks of hard travel, sticking to the shadows, hiding his face, Jaimie finally ran out of luck less than a day north of King’s Landing.

He’d stayed with the ship all the way up to Duskendale to avoid having to cross the Blackwater. Then he’d nearly frozen to death riding the slowest, saddest mare in Westeros back to the west across the Crownlands towards the Kingsroad. Hoping against hope that he wouldn’t be too late to spot Sansa’s army before it neared the city, he urged the old nag through barely passable forest tracks until he was close enough to the road to hear any large party that passed.

And there he dismounted to break his fast and relieve himself, and thus he was standing with his trousers open and no free hand for a weapon when he heard the unmistakeable crunch of a boot in the snow mere yards away. Too close for him to do much but silently curse all the gods that ever were that he’d left his sword wrapped and hidden in the bedroll on that miserable horse’s back. He immediately followed the curse with an equally fervent prayer that he would be able to talk his way out of whatever was about to befall him. Or somehow reach his sword in time.

“At least do me the courtesy of letting me put it away,” he said boldly, and proceeded to shake his cock dry and fumble his trousers closed around it. To his relief, nobody stabbed him while he did so.

“All done?” the interloper asked, in a voice he had never expected to hear again. “Turn around. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

_The irony._

“That presents a problem.” But he obligingly raised his arms and turned slowly to face Arya Stark. She stood several sword-lengths away, body at ease but clearly ready to draw if he threatened. From her apparent lack of surprise, he got the strong impression that she’d known who he was all along, even before she’d seen he had only one hand to raise.

With a sigh of relief, he pulled the scarf away from his face. It didn’t matter now. The cold air was fresh, sharp, bracing on his skin.

The Stark girl’s voice was no less cold, but rather less bracing.

“Kingslayer.”

He’d known he would hear that again. Oathkeeper had never had the same ring to it. “Lady Arya. Pleasant day.” He nodded politely like the courtier he had once been. She did not return the gesture. Her hand remained poised near the pommel of her sword.

She looked him up and down. “You died.”

“You’d have liked that.”

Now she nodded. “I don’t trust people who show back up after they’re supposed to be dead.”

She drew her sword in a single smooth motion, preternaturally quick. The sword was sheathed one moment, ready the next. He’d been that fast once, but never so graceful, even with a rapier. Arya moved like a cat, small but potentially lethal.

“More to the point,” she continued, “you left.” She turned her body, assuming a fighting stance. “You should have stayed gone. Oathbreaker.”

Now that one stung a bit.

“You can see I’m unarmed.” He held up his hand and stump again, using his elbows to ease his cloak back so she could see he carried no weapons at his belt. Or almost none.

“You have a knife.”

Of course he did. Everybody had a knife. “I have to eat. I’ve no wish to fight.”

“Don’t use it then. That will make you even easier to kill.”

Her unflappable demeanor unnerved him, even as he admired it. She would have made a remarkable Lannister. “So harsh, for one so young. What has life done to you, child?” He knew many of those things all too well, of course. Surprising she was still alive and reasonably sane after all life had done to her. Or at least she pretended sanity well enough.

Her face never changed. She didn’t try to argue the “child” thing. Her sword tip never wavered.

“Everything.”

“Everything but death,” he suggested, stalling.

The slightest hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. It was terrifying. He rethought the sanity issue.

“I said everything.”

She advanced a step. He retreated, hand up again.

“I just want to talk to Ser Brienne of Tarth.”

That, finally, gave her pause.

“What?”

“You’re riding out to meet your sister, yes? Brienne will be with her. Take me there. I can be your prisoner. She’ll thank you for it.”

Arya laughed. “Thank the person who spares you then makes her have to see you again? I don’t think so, Kingslayer. She’d thank me for your head on a spike, though.” She advanced again, purpose darkening her eyes.

“Please!” So it had come to this. Pleading for his life from the smallest of the Starks. Fitting, somehow. More fitting still if she ignored the plea, but he had only self-abasement left. He backed away, stumbling over a root before righting himself with an ungainly jerk. “I just want to see her again. Speak to her again. Then if I’m to be killed, let her do it. That’s only fair, don’t you think?”

“Fair? You think you deserve fairness?”

“No.” He was being honest, at least. Surely she would have to give him that. “Me least of all. I’m the Kingslayer. The oath breaker. I abandoned my love and the cause of good to rescue a deranged tyrant who probably deserved death even more than I do.”

She tilted her head, stopping again. Her arm was unshakable; the sword point might have been hung from a string, it stayed so level. “Say the last part again.”

He cast his mind back. He’d been babbling. What had come out of his mouth last? “I...rescued a deranged tyrant who—“

“Before that.”

Oh. That. “I abandoned the woman I love. To go help...the woman I used to love.”

She said nothing, kept leveling a cold glare at him. After a moment, he resumed talking to fill the silence.

“I’ve made a lot of unfortunate choices for love. They all seemed to make sense at the time. Love complicates things. Perhaps if you’re ever in love, you’ll understand.”

Something passed across her face then, so swiftly he might have imagined it. Humor? Regret?

“I doubt it,” she said.

“Have you never been in love?” As if he cared. But it kept her talking instead of stabbing.

She looked as though she actually gave it some thought before answering. “No.” He’d have thought she was lying if she hadn’t continued. “But somebody was in love with me once. It complicated things for him.”

She sheathed her sword and stood back, allowing Jaimie room to breathe a sigh of relief. Too soon, perhaps.

“You may be right, Kingslayer. Brienne may want to kill you herself. And if she does, she deserves the chance. Get back on your horse. They’re only a day or so out from the city, we can probably catch them by nightfall.” Arya gathered her horse’s reins and half-leapt into the saddle, hitching herself into place and tucking her cloak around her. “Cover your face again and keep your stump under your cloak. Lead the way to the Kingsroad. Once we’re there, stay on the road and don’t try to get out of my sight. We’ll have to stop before we approach the camp so I can tie you up. Do as I say, and you have my word you’ll make it to Brienne of Tarth alive.”

She gestured for him to move ahead of her on the track, then sidled closer and severed the strap securing his bedroll to his saddle in one quick motion. The clank as it tumbled to the ground startled Jaime’s decrepit horse into a momentary trot.

He’d never even seen her draw the knife. The implication was obvious—it could just as easily have gone into his back. And she had known about the sword, too. Which he had now lost, along with most of his few belongings.

Jaime used his bad arm to settle his cloak over his legs. “I have your word, you say?”

She’d fallen back several paces, but he still heard her derisive snort. “Remember, I still think she’d probably be fine with just your head.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that line about the knife was a nod to “The Lion in Winter.” They all have knives. It’s 1183 and they’re barbarians! 
> 
> There may also eventually be a Sansa/Tyrion piece in this series, titled “The Lion in Winterfell,” so you can probably guess where that’s headed.


	4. Chapter 4

“They won’t object,” Sansa repeated, emphasizing her words with a brief frown in Brienne’s direction. “Tyrion probably already knows I don’t mean to cede the North. If he doesn’t, Bran does. I know Edmure Tully will support my demand, and Robyn Arryn. Mostly likely the Iron Islands. If anyone was truly going to take issue with it, we would know that by now.”

Brienne clasped her hands in front of her and rocked slightly on her heels. Her feet were already cold again, and the brazier in Sansa’s large campaign pavilion was too far away to do much good.

Sansa herself seemed oblivious to the cold. She stared down at the unfurled map of Westeros on the table before them, tracing the southern boundary of the North with one finger, almost as if she were caressing it.

“My Lady, if the last Targaryen cannot ascend the Iron Throne—“

“The Iron Throne is gone, they say,” Sansa reminded her. “There are already ballads about it. The songs travel faster than ravens, it seems.”

“The throne that is to come, then. If your brother Jon cannot be crowned, and must be killed or exiled for murdering Danaerys Targaryen, you have as strong a claim to lead the Seven Kingdoms as any.”

“You forget yourself, Ser.” Sansa turned from the map and stared Brienne down, her regal bearing only lending strength to Brienne’s argument. “I’ve had enough of the Seven Kindoms. I will do what’s right for my people. I will free the North again, and leave the south to its own choices.”

“Of course, Lady Stark.”

Sansa nodded, then tilted her head. “And what will you do, I wonder? I know you once thought of staying in the North, but I suspect Winterfell no longer holds any charm for you.”

Indeed, Winterfell had never been the source of the charm, and they both knew it. Sansa finally settled in a chair and dabbled a spoon in a dish of stew as Brienne thought how best to answer.

“I will serve the new King, if he will have me.” It was the life she’d once dreamed of. Bittersweet to know it would only be hers after she’d learned to dream of something else.

“I’m sure he will, whoever he is. He would be a fool not to.” Sansa took a tentative nibble of the stew, then set the spoon back down. “I trust you’ve chosen to dress for the weather tomorrow?”

“I have.” She could feel her cheeks burn. She’d so much rather Sansa had pretended it hadn’t happened. “I apologize if my actions were in any way—“

“Brienne.”

“My lady?”

To Brienne’s vast surprise, Sansa actually smiled. Slightly, and wryly, but it was clearly a smile. Brienne hasn’t thought that possible.

“You were not meant for the North, clearly. I’m glad you’re unharmed. Go now, rest while you can. The watch is set.”

“I...thank you, Lady Stark.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. She hadn’t wanted to return to Winterfell, but she hadn’t expected this easy dismissal. She remembered the look on Catelyn Stark’s face when she’d enlisted Brienne to help safeguard her daughters. Brienne doubted the late Lady Stark would consider it a job well done. The girls had survived on their own, not through any help of hers, in the end.

The near copy of Catelyn Stark in front of her picked up the spoon and pulled the dish closer. “Rest well, Ser.”

“And you, my lady.” There was nothing else to say.

Brienne left the lady of Winterfell only to walk into a flurry of new snow. The sun had set, and the world was all black and white and struggling campfires as she made her way back to her tent.

* * * * *

“Just kill me. Don’t leave me to die here.”

Shrugging, Arya looked at Jaime’s ramshackle excuse for a mount. “That nag will die before you do. You’ll have plenty to eat.”

“You have my knife.”

She patted the sheath tucked into her belt. “You saw from the rise how close they’re camped. I should be back within an hour or two at most.”

“By which time I might freeze to death with no fire.”

“That would simplify things.” She had already accommodated him more than she cared to, and grew tired of wasting time on his whining. “Set my horse loose before you die. At least it’ll have a chance that way.”

Then she turned and slipped into the woods, setting a pace fast enough to keep her warm, but cautious enough to keep silent and avoid obstacles.

If he died, he died. She suspected he would live, since he seemed to make a habit of it.

Arya let her mind go as she warmed into the run, exchanging active thoughts for attention to her surroundings. She heard the creak and tick of frozen wood as the temperature dropped, saw the play of muted moonlight through the light snowfall, smelled the crisp air that presaged only more snow and no large predators nearby. She reminded herself that the shadows could no longer resolve into wights.

Her feet were sure and swift, and her luck held. She saw the lights of Sansa’s campfires in what seemed like no time, and slowed to a halt to contemplate her approach.

She could walk into the camp straight from the road if she liked. She was well known to anyone likely to be on watch, she would be greeted as a friend and welcomed. But if they knew she was there, she would have no chance of spiriting Brienne of Tarth away to meet Jaime so she could kill him.

Having agreed to let that meeting take place, rather than dragging Jaime into the camp to be taken prisoner, she was stuck finding a way to sneak in unseen. Which would be easier than sneaking out unseen. Brienne wasn’t made for stealth.

Arya spotted the two pairs of watchmen nearest her—noisy, carrying torches, confident they could call for assistance if they needed it. They were too comfortable. The Long Night might be over, but the long winter was still upon them and held innumerable dangers. And nearly every other kingdom and important house had a delegation traveling to King’s Landing too; any one of them might have designs on one of the others.

Silent, slim as a shadow, Arya simply waited for a moment of heavier snowfall and slipped between the pairs unseen. By the time the flurry cleared, she was already walking around the back of a row of tents into the warm light of the fire outside her father’s big campaign tent.

Sansa’s tent now, of course. The pavilion had seen years of use at Winterfell—as a gathering hall for the annual market fairs, as a temporary summer home for the family on excursions, possibly even as an actual campaign tent when her father was last at war—but now it bore the Stark banners in the style used by the last true King of the North, and boasted a pair of impressive guards who appeared far more alert than their counterparts on the camp’s perimeter.

Arya wasn’t there to see Sansa, so it didn’t matter. She walked past them, just another bundled-up soldier in the snow on an errand to Ser Brienne’s tent. That was easily spotted, as it was the second-largest and very close to Sansa’s. Glowing through the night, which suggested the occupant was still awake. And unguarded, which was helpful. Nobody paid her any attention.

She stamped her feet outside the tent flap, knocking snow from her boots.

“Ser Brienne?”

“Enter,” came the answer. Brienne sounded sleepy but not as though she’d been rudely awakened.

Arya parted the flap and stepped inside, sizing up the space automatically as she did so.

A low cot, heaped with furs, took up most of one side of the tent. A stool and brazier occupied the space nearest the entrance, while a folding table and chair spanned the opposite side. Brienne sat there, eyeing her in mild surprise. At the back of the tent, two large trunks stood, one standing open to reveal a few pieces of armor. Cloths and damp clothing were draped over the side of the trunk, and the rest of the armor sat loose around the brazier, apparently drying.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Brienne remarked.

“Nobody was.” Arya stripped her gloves off and warmed her hands over the fire. “I didn’t announce myself.”

Brienne’s body came to alert, spine straightening, her hand flexing automatically near her hip where her sword hilt would normally be. The sword in question was laid on her cot, safely sheathed. “Why not?”

Arya pursed her lips. “I didn’t need to. Your men are too complacent. The end of the war doesn’t mean the end of danger. The woods are full of hungry wolves, especially in the winter.”

“Some of the wolves are men.” The knight stood down, easing back in her chair to stretch her feet closer to the fire.

“I was talking about the men.” Arya hooked the stool closer with one foot and sat, eyeing the hunk of coarse bread on Brienne’s table. Noticing the direction of her gaze, Brienne tossed the portion to her then brushed the crumbs from her hands.

Arya caught it and took a grateful bite. She hadn’t minded her empty belly until she saw the food. Hunger felt comfortable, familiar, sharpening. It had felt good to run until her legs burned then ceased to burn, to let herself grow hungry enough to care. King’s Landing had been stifling. She wasn’t made for a life of safety and inaction.

Brienne crossed her arms and tipped her chair onto its back legs, scowling, saying nothing, just waiting.

Arya saw no point in being coy. “I found the Kingslayer. Alive. He’s waiting out in the woods. He wants to talk to you.” She took another bite but kept talking. “I thought you might want to kill him yourself rather than bother with...” she waved her hand towards the tent flap, the camp, Sansa.

Slowly, Brienne drew her legs in again and let her chair fall back to square. It righted with a thump. Her blue eyes, oddly large at the best of times, looked enormous. She had lost weight, and was even paler than Arya remembered, and for a moment Arya saw the Night King’s skull there and shivered despite the heat of the brazier. Nothing new. She saw the Night King everywhere, waking or sleeping. Saw his dragon in every cloud, his army behind every stand of trees.

“What do you mean,” hissed Brienne, rising from her chair—and rising and rising, as she did. “Why did you come here?”

Arya sighed. “I was riding out to meet Sansa and happened upon a familiar one-handed man taking a piss. I would have killed him, but he convinced me you might want to do the honors.”

“He’s dead. Tyrion found him dead with Cersei in the Red Keep.” She took two paces across the tent and swept her sword off the cot, then seemed to puzzle between drawing it or buckling it on. She looked exhausted, dark circles beneath her eyes, her movements slow and stiff. “He’s dead.”

“Ser. He lives. He waits in the wood over the rise to the south, perhaps a league away.” She finished off the bread. “Should I go back and return with his head on a spike? I’ll have to find a spike.”

“ _No_!”

The anguish that washed over the pale knight’s face told Arya things would be more complex than she’d thought. Because of love, no doubt. The former maid of Tarth clearly suffered a range of feelings for the Kingslayer that couldn’t be explained by frustrated lust and a desire for vengeance.

“Then come back with me and finish him. Or take him prisoner if you prefer. Give your Lady a prize to take to King’s Landing. Only decide quickly before he freezes to death. It’s getting late.”


	5. Chapter 5

Brienne sat back down too abruptly, jarring her spine from tailbone to neck. “It can’t be true.”

The Stark girl simply stared her down. Brienne didn’t know whether to laugh at her or draw a sword on her or...

If it was true, if he was alive...

Would she want his head? She would have said she never wanted to see even that much of him again, except...she had a lot of things to say to Jaime Lannister, if he had indeed survived. A wide range of things. Some of the things weren’t so much words as blows. She’d imagined so many ways to harm him since that day he’d left her sobbing in public view in the courtyard at Winterfell. Hearing he was dead had been a disappointment. Hearing he might be alive opened a world of possibilities.

Rage blossomed in her heart, warming her as the fire hadn’t.

She realized Arya was watching her, eyes cold and empty as a predator’s. Arya Stark was not fanciful. She didn’t tease. She didn’t concoct stories. It made no sense for her to be lying about this, no matter how incredible it sounded.

Brienne took a deep breath, then rolled a hand in Arya’s direction. “Again. Tell it to me again, from the beginning.” She put aside her shock this time and listened.

“I don’t know how he survived, but I found him on his way to intercept the Northern army, as I was. He said he wanted to talk to you. His own plan was apparently to ride straight into camp and surrender himself. I considered bringing him in as a prisoner, but that way...seemed to offer you fewer choices. I thought if anyone had earned the right to kill him, it was you.”

“Indeed,” Brienne murmured.

“So I brought him to the woods a little way from here, and told him I would bring you to him. He isn’t armed, he has no food, he’s a wraith of his former self. If he’s still there when we arrive, you’ll have the advantage.“

“I’ve had that for some time.” It was only the truth. He’d never be the swordsman he once was, and Brienne had only grown stronger and faster over the years of strife. “You could have killed him so easily.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Arya looked away, the vertical line between her brows deepening. “I’ve killed...enough. For now. I want to find something else to do.”

Brienne had no response to that. Arya was as cold-blooded a person as she’d ever met. But so young, no matter how damaged she was. Maybe even young enough to change her life.

“Stay here.” Brienne dragged her boots back on, tucking in the laces, and shrugged her cloak around her shoulders. “I need to fetch my squire. I’ll return in a moment.”

* * * * *

Arya was surprised to realize she was enjoying herself on their hastily organized caper. She kept the squire Abra’s cloak pulled tight around her face, clung to Brienne’s back like a burr behind her saddle, and tried not to laugh as Brienne dealt with the guards.

“My squire has family in the village hard by. I promised her a visit. We’ll return before the watch changes.”

“Yes, Ser. I can call for somebody to ride with you if—”

“No need.”

Brienne’s legs bumped Arya’s as she urged the horse forward.

“Safe travels, Abra,” the guard called when they were already past. Arya raised a hand in response as the horse broke into a canter, biting her lip against a smile.

After a few dozen paces, Brienne explained. “He’s sweet on her. On the way back, you’d do best to pretend you’re asleep.”

Arya raised her face to the cold night air, letting the snow sting her cheeks. “I’ll keep it in mind. We’ll need to crest the hill ahead until we’re out of view of the camp, then double back through the woods. There’s a burnt-out wayhouse west of the road. Turn off there, then I’ll lead the way.”

Brienne nodded but said nothing. She was busy drawing her own hood as close as possible against the snow, and pulling a thick scarf up over her mouth and nose.

Arya preferred riding in silence anyway. She appreciated a companion who didn’t need to chat constantly. Brienne seemed the same, which made Arya wonder what she’d ever seen in the Kingslayer. That man never stopped talking. He seemed to exist only so long as somebody was paying attention to him.

According to a younger Sansa, Jaime Lannister was a beautiful man. He seemed rather worse for wear now, but not much changed in essence, so Arya assumed he was stil objectively a paragon. She could see it, as she had with Gendry—the even features, the expressive eyes, soft lips and broad shoulders that tapered to narrow hips. But despite her efforts, she didn’t feel it. She hadn’t wanted love, because she’d seen what love did to people and it never seemed good. But she’d wanted...something. A spark of some kind. A reason to do it again. She hadn’t found that reason.She’d managed to satisfy herself, but having a man there hadn’t added anything much to the experience.

She’d felt more heat sparring with Brienne of Tarth than she had fucking Gendry Baratheon. It made sense to her. She enjoyed fighting, and Brienne was an exemplary fighter who could actually best her, which was rare. Brienne was also everything she could see herself wanting in a man, without the trouble of having to talk to a man. A worthy opponent, with broad shoulders, expressive eyes, soft lips, and hips that felt right under Arya’s hands. Legs that felt interesting and full of potential against hers instead of simply...there.

Just as well. She hadn’t wanted to stay with Gendry, and wanting to fuck him again would have clouded the issue. She didn’t want to stay anywhere. She wanted—needed—to go, and keep going.

Arya didn’t need a lover, she needed a traveling companion. Preferably not a man, because she was tired of men and their bottomless needs. And not Brienne herself, because when Brienne talked about anything other than fighting, she didn’t interest Arya much. And Brienne was clearly enthralled by men, or one man at least. But somebody like her in the abstract. Somebody a bit less noble, more comfortable with moral gray areas. A woman with a taste for adventure.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late post!

Jaime heard the horse from some way off, the snow making the sound travel strangely so distance was harder to estimate. The only thing he knew for sure was that it was drawing closer, and he was stuck with no weapons. And a choice between a horse that was half dead already, and a horse that would be faster but would make him a horse thief on top of everything else. 

He looked around the small clearing for a place to hide, but even the largest of the nearby trees wasn’t thick enough to mask his body. The brush was too sparse and leafless, and there were no rocks or convenient hollows. Nothing for it but to wait and hope the rider took some other fork in the trail. 

He was even more unsettled when the crunching hoof beats stopped before reaching the camp, and the lighter sound of a person’s footsteps replaced them. 

“It’s me.” Arya’s voice preceded her, easing his mind somewhat. She appeared from the direction opposite the one she’d departed in earlier. Her cloak was different than he remembered, coarser and lined with some other, lesser fur than wolf. Over her shoulder she called out, “He’s still here.” 

Through the snowfall, from between the winter-black trees, a horse and rider emerged. 

Jaime’s heart seemed to stop, his knees going so weak he feared he might tumble to the ground at Brienne’s feet. He watched her dismount and walk towards him, her face devoid of all expression, and for those few seconds he thought she might be coming to embrace him. 

Her fist came out of nowhere, bashing his jaw like a stone and sending him staggering; he fell to his knees after all. 

“Ow.”

“Get up,”

Stars flashed before his eyes. “If it’s so you can hit me again, I’ll need a mo—“

Her boot slammed his flank and he landed in the snow, his stump hitting first and blinding him with pain. A lifetime of training kicked in and he continued the roll, using the momentum to spring to his feet and back away in a defensive crouch. 

“Fair enough.” He took in her face, looking for any show of feeling. She might as well have been wearing a death mask.

She drew her sword, giving him the view of Oathkeeper he’d assumed would be his last. Jaime wished he’d managed to get a few more words in, but accepted Brienne’s right to set her own pace. It was what he’d come back for, after all. 

He dropped to his knees on purpose this time, raising his head to extend his neck, making it as easy for her as possible. 

“I’m sorry. It was worth it to see you again,” he said. “Proof that I love you more than life itself.” 

Glib to the end. Sometimes he truly disgusted himself.

A gust of wind buffeted between them, carrying a swirl of heavier snowfall. Brienne tossed her head to flick the snow away, knocking her hood back in the process. Her hair was nearly as pale as the snow, silvery in the small amount of moonlight that managed to keep the woods from total darkness. 

The world took a breath, time receding like a wave in a quiet paise as Brienne drew her sword back...then rushing forward again in sound and motion as her arm trembled then failed. the sword slicing into the snow as she released it. She sank to her knees, hands to her face, and screamed without words. 

Rage and pain and loneliness and all the things that had passed between them, all the wounds he’d inflicted on her, seemed to resonate in her voice. The sword would have been kinder. But, he reminded himself, she didn’t owe him kindness. 

After that one terrible cry, she fell silent except for labored breathing, great gasps of air as she struggled with her agony. Jaime edged forward until he could slip his arms around her, pulling her into an awkward embrace. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. It was easier this time. Apologizing wasn’t nearly as difficult as he’d always assumed it would be. “I love you. I had to come back to you.” His words were slurred a little. His jaw was starting to ache brutally now that the initial shock was waning, and he suspected it was already starting to swell. 

Brienne put one hand on his shoulder, the other still obscuring her face. She gripped him hard enough to bruise, and seemed ready to push him away. Then her hand slipped down to rest against his chest, the dark leather of her glove melting into the dark brown of his cloak. She let him gather her closer. Finally she wrapped her other arm around his waist and buried her face in his shoulder. 

He wanted to wrap his cloak around her, around them both, building them a space away from prying eyes where they could unravel their heartbreak alone, together. 

* * * * *

Brienne wanted to hate him. She had carried that wish along with her like an ember these past many weeks, waiting for the right time to fan it into flames so it could burn itself out. 

Seeing his face had doused it, even as her anger carried her fist forward into that face so hard her hand was throbbing. Even as she’d kicked him to the ground. She was angry, but he was alive, and once her heart caught up with her mind, the simple fact of him being there, breathing, bleeding, talking to her, hit her like a punch to the gut. 

She didn’t remember how she wound up on the ground, or how his arms ended up around her. Only that when she was able to think again, her senses were so full of him that all other thoughts disappeared. 

His cloak, rough under her cheek but still smelling of him. His voice murmuring soothing nonsense into her hair. The perfect pressure of his arms around her. She hadn’t allowed herself to grieve when she’d heard he was dead. But this, this felt like grief at last, this pain and his efforts to help her bear it. Grief for all the new losses his survival brought. Like the ability to consign her love to the past and move forward from it.. Like losing the satisfaction of knowing that although he might have mortally wounded the part of her that had been capable of love, at least he’d died himself as a result. 

With him alive, she could also no longer pretend she was happy for his death. Clinging to him, hearing the beat of his heart, feeling his breath warm against her hair, something in her lightened, gladdened. And realizing that, she couldn’t bring herself to kill him. No matter how much he deserved it. 

Summoning every ounce of willpower she possessed, Brienne pushed herself away from Jaime’s embrace and stood on legs that trembled from the cold and the loss of his touch. Looking at his face made her remember everything he’d done as if it had just happened. It was all too much at once. Her gorge rose, and she swallowed hard to keep her dinner down. 

Dragging her gaze from him, she searched the clearing for Arya. The girl had been silent all this while, no doubt disgusted at Brienne’s weakness. 

She stood by Brienne’s mare, leaning back against the animal for warmth, arms crossed as she stared their way. 

Arya shook her head. “It complicates things.” 

“What?”

Arya drew her sword, the steel barely whispering as it left the sheath. “Stand aside.”

“No!” The word ripped itself from Brienne’s throat before she could think. Oathkeeper was only a step away, the step it took her to go from not wanting to kill Jaime herself to not wanting him dead at all. She snatched up the sword and raised it, facing off against Arya, her body taking over when her logic failed her. 

Jaime might be the worst man alive, but she had paid a dear price for him and he was hers to deal with as she saw fit. 

“You must be joking,” Arya said. 

“What are you doing?” Jaime asked at the same time. 

_Idiot_. “I’m protecting you.”

He sighed and stood up stiffly, flicking his cloak to shake some of the clumped snow off the bottom. “I’d have preferred you to do it, you’ve certainly got cause, but everybody wants me dead. What does it really matter whose sword I die on at this point?”

He’d expected to die. That only made sense. But Brienne could hear it now, the impatient edge in his voice. He would have welcomed a quick death out here in the woods. It would have been easier than any future he might have to face if he lived. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. 

“You said I had the right,” she reminded Arya, her resolve strengthening. “You said you’d killed enough. I don’t want him to die in a moment. I want to make him...think about it first. Know what he’s done, truly know. I want to make him suffer.”

“For how long? I don’t want to be here all night.” 

Jaime shuffled beside her. “I would rather not suffer, if it’s all the same to you.” 

“Shut up. And no, it is not all the same to me.”

Arya made a disgusted noise and sheathed her sword again. “What do you plan to do with him, then? Take him to Sansa after all?”

“No.” She didn’t know what she planned, yet. She turned to point Oathkeeper at Jaime, then advanced until the deadly steel was grazing the cloth over his heart. 

He didn’t move. Didn’t take his eyes from hers. She leaned in a fraction of an inch, letting the sword take a part of her weight, remembering how his heart had sounded under her ear. One swift push and she could end this now. She knew that would be the wisest course of action. 

She wasn’t feeling wise that night. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling, and needed time to sort that out. 

“Can you hide him for me?” 

* * * * *

This time, acknowledging he would probably freeze if she didn’t, Arya let Jaime have a fire. She even gave him his knife back before she rode off again with Brienne. 

Brienne. His arms could still feel her, even now, his nose was still full of her scent. It wasn’t even a good scent, just wet wool and leather and whatever she’d last eaten on her breath, but he wouldn’t have traded it for anything. 

Seeing her again had been his only aim, and he had never expected to survive the experience. He had made his peace with that. The world would be a better place without him in it. His death was his last chance to make anybody happy. And now, it seemed, he was to be deprived of even that chance. 

Would it be torture? Was that what Brienne had in mind, breaking his body and mind a piece at a time until she finally had her fill of revenge? 

If she only knew how much it had hurt simply to be left alive and have to watch her leave him just now without a backward glance—

_Oh._

He slumped to the bedroll he’d settled by the fire to keep from sitting on the snow. It was Arya’s—his was lost on the forest floor somewhere, along with his sword and what little gold he’d had left—but they could sort that out when she returned. He scooped some snow from the ground nearest him and tried to form it into a ball, then gave up and pressed the wet mess clumsily to his bruised jaw. 

The snowfall had stopped for the moment, and the fire had warmed the scene to a cheerful orange, but Jaime’s mind was still crowded with the cold black and gray images of Brienne’s short visit. Her face, once so offensive to him and now so necessary, crumpling in anguish that he’d caused. The scream she’d let out. Her sword falling to the snow, later pressing into his chest until the point breached his clothing and broke his skin. 

Her riding away from him. 

_Her riding away from him._

_Her_ riding away from _him._

He was alone, but his tears still shamed him when they came. A lifetime as Tywin Lannister’s son had taught him to feel his weaknesses constantly but do anything in his power to pretend they didn’t exist. Likewise, he had come to admit to himself, a lifetime as his sister’s consort. She’d rewarded his bravado, his cruelty, and never failed to mock anything she saw as softness in him. Kindness, even to the children. Humor if it didn’t come at the expense of another person. Love if it wasn’t being proven by him somehow risking himself or hurting someone else to benefit her. 

She would have mocked his tears viciously. Yet he’d chosen to return to her, again and again. She’d known he would always come back to her, no matter how she mistreated him. He would always try harder to prove his love, his worth to her. And the harder he tried, the more she saw it as a weakness. 

Brienne had given him love all at once, freely, a wellspring of kindness and gladness he could have spent a lifetime drinking from and never gone thirsty again. She’d expected nothing in return but what she already had: his respect and loyalty. Instead of spurring him to evil, she’d opened doorways to goodness and let him choose whether or not to follow her there. 

He had been too self-absorbed, too greedy, to recognize the difference until he returned to the parched well of Cersei’s love, a place he now realized had never held water to begin with. Only the lying promise of water and a long, slow death by thirst. 

There wouldn’t be physical torture, he realized. Brienne didn’t need to harm his body. She could cause the most pain by doing what she’d just done—leaving him to love her helplessly with no hope of assurance she would ever again love him in return. Exactly as he’d done to her.

The keenest hurt of all was knowing that by brutalizing her heart, by repaying her love and trust with betrayal, he had taught her that love could be a weapon, and turned her into a person who would use it. 

He’d made her—the best, most noble person he’d ever met, or would ever meet—a little more like Cersei. She had become somebody who wanted another to suffer, all because of him. He ruined everything he touched. And for that, he could never forgive himself, let alone expect mercy from Brienne. 


	7. Chapter 7

Arya had done what Jaime could only assume was her best on short notice. The day after she’d brought Brienne to meet the Kingslayer in the woods, she’d ridden him farther from King’s Landing, heading south again almost to the Roseroad before veering west into a small village that stood ominously empty. 

It wasn’t the first he’d seen like it. The war had not stopped at King’s Landing, it seemed. Nor was the south of Westeros prepared for a winter this bitter. Or perhaps the evil of the Long Night had taken a toll that was yet to be fully recognized. Either way, many wayside villages and small holdings had been abandoned or otherwise depopulated in the past months. 

This one was barely a hamlet, half a dozen buildings partly buried in snow at the edge of the Kingswood. One of the buildings looked to have been the smallest, least hospitable tavern and inn in Westeros. 

Despite the cold. a few chickens grubbed listlessly in the frozen earth near the well, and an emaciated cow rustled around an empty hayrick in a pen where the gate swung open in the wind. Most of the doors stood open as well, and Jaime and Arya soon discovered the houses and tavern had been ridded of anything that might have once held value. 

“There’s firewood, but you should probably use it sparingly. It looks like this place has already been ransacked, but the next group of bandits won’t know that. If you draw attention to yourself, you’ll have to deal with it alone. I don’t know how long it will take me to get back here.” 

“Deal with it how?” He looked around the tavern hall, but even the andirons by the meager hearth had vanished. 

Arya drew a short sword from her pack. “Courtesy of your lady.” 

It was a terrible sword. Dull steel that looked too poor to take a decent edge. One arm of the quilling rusted. The hilt wrapped in leather straps that appeared to be disintegrating from dry rot. 

He took it with no effort to hide his distaste. “Convey my thanks.” 

“Probably no one will come. If they do, you’ll manage. Or you won’t.” 

Always a ray of sunshine, the Stark girl. Sometimes she reminded him uncomfortably of Brienne. At most times, uncomfortably of her late mother.

“How did you know this place?” 

“I didn’t. A lot of people have died since winter started, or left their homes for warmer parts. I just stopped at the first empty place I found. You’re just lucky it was an inn. And that there aren’t any corpses.” 

He looked around them pointedly, displeasure pulling his mouth awry. “I would have preferred sleeping rough.”

“Feel free.” She was already repacking her things. “There’s some hay and grain still in the stable. Rest your horse and give it some oats, it may improve. Also, if you mix flour, water, salt, and add honey if you can find any, you can make flatbread. Add an egg, and you may even manage a cake.” 

“How would you know?” He wanted her to keep talking and not leave him alone in this empty, haunted place. 

Her eyes softened, and she blinked a few times. “I used to know a baker,” Then she turned brisk again, gathering up her few things. “I didn’t want her to spare you. If you aren’t here when I return after the crowning, I’ll see you’re hunted down and slaughtered like a rabid dog.”

“Leave this place? With all its comforts? I wouldn’t dream of it.” 

She shot him the kind of glare a little sister might, then walked out. A moment later, he heard the clop of her horse’s hooves on the frozen road. 

“Give my regards to the new King,” he said to the empty room. “Farewell. We’ll meet again soon, I hope under happier circumstances.”

The answering quiet was deafening. 

* * *

It was done, and with a minimum of dispute. Bran Stark would be crowned ruler of the Six Kingdoms, Sansa would be Queen in the North, and Jon Snow—whom nobody seemed inclined to call Aegon Targaryen—would return in exile to the Wall or perhaps travel beyond it to rejoin the Wildlings. 

Queenslayer. Kin slayer too, as it turned out. Brienne wondered whether any such epithet would stick to him as Kingslayer had to Jaime. Probably not. The young man always looked like he’d just lost his best friend, but in truth he seemed to live a life more charmed than cursed. And It was a lesser crime to kill a usurping Queen than a rightful King.

So much death. King’s Landing had been stacked with corpses, much like Winterfell, and just as in Winterfell the smoke from the pyres and smoldering buildings seemed to cling to every piece of clothing or armor, taint the taste of the food, linger on the skin. 

Even now, speeding through the icy wood after Arya in the palest morning light, Brienne’s nose was still plagued with the stink. 

“How much farther?” she called when Arya slowed to pass under a low-hanging branch. 

“We’re nearly there.” Arya glanced back at Brienne. “We can’t risk this trip together again. You’ll need to come alone next time. Or find some other place to put him, if you refuse to kill him.”

She’d already worked that out, though she hadn’t told Arya yet lest the plan had to change. With no resources in King’s Landing , she’d had to confide in someone, so she’d gone to the one person she knew would keep Jaime’s existence a secret—even if only to secure his own chance to kill him. His own brother. 

It shouldn’t have surprised Brienne that Tyrion already knew Jaime had survived the fall of the Red Keep. He’d been the one to find the bodies, to spread word of Jamie and Cersei’s deaths. If either of the bodies hadn’t been who they were meant to be, he would have been the most likely to spot the fraud. 

“You surprise me,” he’d admitted, raising his ever-present goblet of wine to her. “If anybody had cause to kill my brother, it would be you. He surprises me too, by coming back to you. Did you let him live so you could torture him?” He didn’t seem bothered by the prospect, but Brienne had learned not to trust Tyrion’s show of feelings. Especially where his family was concerned. 

She’d answered cautiously, in part because she still wasn’t sure herself why she hadn’t killed Jaime on the spot on that frigid night outside Sansa’s encampment. 

“I want to know… If he’s to die, I want to know he understands first what he did. Not to me…or not just to me. I want him to be sorry for all of it.” More or less. She couldn’t reason past that point, and whatever else she felt regarding Jaime’s survival had no logic whatsoever to support it. 

“Sounds like torture to me.” 

“No. That isn’t—“

“A joke, my Lady.” 

He was one of the few people she would still let get away with calling her that. His strategic gallantry made the words sound charming coming from him, rather than insulting. But she still didn’t get his jokes much of the time. 

“Are you going to tell anyone?”

He tilted his head. “I don’t currently have a plan to.”

Not the same thing and she knew it, but she wasn’t in a position to quibble. “I need a place to...keep him. Not here in King’s Landing. Someplace close enough to travel to quickly, but still out of the way.”

“Keep him? Like a mistress?” The idea seemed to delight him. 

Brienne felt her face flush, her hairline tingling from the heat. “That’s not—no, I only meant—“

“Peace, peace. Oh, this is priceless. And I think I may know just the spot. I had once thought to keep...a companion, outside the city. I couldn’t bear the separation, so I brought her here instead. It was a mistake, I would have done better to keep her at a distance. But I still have the house if you want to use it. If it’s still standing. It hasn’t had tenants that I know of, but you may have to clear out any squatters. 

She’d accepted, despite her reluctance to involve Tyrion that closely in her intrigue. She’d insisted on purchasing the house and land from him for a fair price. His only condition for his silence was that she let him visit his brother from time to time. Assuming Jaime lived long enough to allow it. 

Brienne supposed the real question was whether Jaime would still be where Arya had left him. She could see the clustered buildings of the village through the trees, past a rough stone wall covered in dead ivy. No smoke rose from the chimneys, but a trace of it lingered in the air as she and Arya rounded the wall and approached the village from the road. It was the only sign of life apart from the pitiful livestock. 

“His horse is still here,” Arya pointed out. She dismounted with a hand on her sword hilt. “Not that anyone would want to steal it.” 

Brienne slid off her mare and scanned the structures. It was hard to imagine Jaime Lannister voluntarily remaining a day in this place, let along a week. 

Arya took a few steps toward the largest of the buildings, which seemed to be an inn “Hello!” 

No answer. Jaime’s horse ambled over to the side of the ramshackle paddock and eyed them with some curiosity. 

“I left him in here.” Arya started toward the door, and Brienne followed, anxiety prickling at her neck. In a week, anything could have happened. Looters. Injuries. Jaime could have eaten some spoiled food and expired. Or he could have given up and left. Again. 

Her stomach knotted at the idea. She forced herself to exhale. The horse was still there. Accidental self-poisoning seemed more likely. 

Arya stopped at the door to let Brienne take the lead. “He’s your problem now.”

“Thank you.” It sounded sarcastic, but she knew Arya hadn’t deserved that. “I mean that. Thank you for everything.”

A slam of wood on wood from inside the inn startled them both into drawing. They backed as one from the door. Then Brienne grabbed the handle and pushed the door hard. It swung in and she raised her sword, advancing into the tavern hall as soon as she’d made sure the corners of the room were clear. 

Another slam. It seemed to come from the back of the building, past the doorway at the end of the hall. Brienne advanced quietly past the rough tables and chairs, sensing rather than hearing Arya behind her. 

The doorway appeared to lead to a hall, with stairs to one side and an archway leading to the kitchen on the other. As soon as Brienne rounded the corner, ready to attack, she stopped cold. 

Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been this. 

Jaime sat staring at her from a stool by a large bucket, his tunic and trouser fronts dusted with flour to match the white smudge across his forehead. He had a large iron griddle across his lap, a kitchen brush in his hand, and seemed frozen mid-scrub. 

“You’re back,” he finally said. 

“You’re washing dishes.”

“He’s what?” Arya peered under Brienne’s arm, barking out a laugh when she saw Jaime. 

Brienne heard her sheathe her sword. 

“Not washing. Just attempting to clean a bit,” Jaime clarified. “I couldn’t spare the water.” With the exaggerated, almost prissy care Brienne had come to recognize as his version of chagrin, he placed the brush in the bucket and stood to hang the griddle alongside the other pots and pans on the wall beside the large kitchen hearth. 

“You made cakes,” Arya remarked, breaking a rough edge from one of the misshapen brown lumps on a platter on the broad table that ran down the center of the room. She took a nibble, then spoke through her food. “Not bad. I like the dried fruit. I never thought you’d manage cakes.”

“A man of surprising resourcefulness.” Brienne realized her sword was still drawn, and sheathed it. “You’re wearing as much flour as went into the food.”

He looked down at himself, seeming to see the mess for the first time. “It gets everywhere.” He brushed his hand across his clothing, attempting to bat away the worst of it. 

“Your...face.” Brienne gestured toward her own forehead, prompting him to wipe his forearm across his face. If anything, it left more flour behind than before. 

Irritated beyond what the circumstances warranted, Brienne took two sharp strides to the table, snapped a relatively clean-looking cloth from beside the platter, and swiped it roughly over Jaime’s face a few times until the flour was mostly gone. 

She dropped it and stepped back, cursing herself as she noticed his smirk. He was always amused when she tried to take care of him, and she’d been unwise to forget it. 

“Thank you, Ser,” he purred. 

She wanted to punch him again, knock the smugness off his face, but it would only be further proof that she cared what he did. What he thought about her. And she did not. 

“What was the noise?” Arya asked, leaning past them to swipe another piece of the cake. 

“Noise?” He wrinkled his face in confusion, then realized what she meant and pointed to a barely visible square in the floor with a large iron ring attached to it. “The cellar door. I was putting the fruit and honey away.”

_Putting things away? Making cakes? Tidying up? Who is this man?_

“Perhaps you should bring them along,” Brienne auggested. “There may not be any where you’re going. But it’s up to you. Gather your things.”

“Am I to abandon my happy home so soon?” 

“Go,” she snapped. 

After another moment, he shrugged and ambled out of the room, nodding to Arya as he went. 

Once she heard his tread on the stairs, Brienne exhaled slowly. If she was being honest with herself, she had to admit she hadn’t expected to find him still there. Seeing him again had been all the harder as she hadn’t actually prepared herself for it. Much less seeing him doing something so mundane and domestic. She’d learned back in Winterfell that watching him do homely things did strange things to her, and that had usually meant things like oiling leather, sharpening weapons, or warming spiced wine at the fire. The idea of him as a nascent baker was downright intoxicating. 

Arya leaned on the table and glanced at her sidelong. “And where is he going?”

“Somewhere safe.” 

“There’s nowhere safe.”

“Safer than this.” Brienne reached for the platter and broke off another piece of the cake that Arya had been stealing from. It was dense and rough, knobbled with bits of dried fruit, a bit stickier than she’d expected.”Is it any good?”

“It’s not terrible. Better than it looks. Are you going to tell me? Or is this where I leave you?”

To buy time, Brienne took a small bite. She was surprised to find the cake less craggy than it looked, with a decent balance of honey and salt. “Not terrible,” she agreed. 

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“The fewer that know, the better, probably,” 

“But somebody else does know?”

Brienne nodded. And soon, two others would likely know, although she counted on their discretion. She’d sent to Tarth for a pair of servants she’d known since childhood, grown up alongside. They were loyal to her family, and if they guessed the identity of the one-handed man at her new “hunting lodge” outside the city, they would never let on. 

“So this is where you leave us,” Brienne confirmed, “with my deepest gratitude for all your help.”

Arya nodded but didn’t move. “Tell me again why I shouldn’t kill him now.”

For a moment, Brienne felt panic rise in her chest, fluttering at her throat. Panic, because she had no good reason to give. She swallowed it back down forcefully. “He...lied to me. Made me a fool. After I’d told myself for years not to trust him, one day I did. And paid the price. If I let him die now, a part of me will always be that fool. If he lives…” She still wasn’t sure what happened if he lived. 

“He did more than hurt you. He’s been hurting people all his life. He killed his own king. He tried to kill Bran. Betrayed the dragon queen. Why shouldn’t he die?” 

So cold. So young. _He should live, because I thought him dead once and I thought the pain might kill me too. He should live, because I want this one thing to myself._ “I told you before. He wants to die. I don’t want to give him that.”

“For a man who wants to die, he certainly worked at learning to feed himself.” 

“You told me how,” Jaime reminded her from the doorway. Arya turned to glare at him. 

Brienne looked from him to Arya. “Did she?” 

“I said I would help you and I did,” Arya retorted. “If he’d starved to death before you made it back here, that wouldn’t have been much help.” She gave Brienne another pointed look. “Last chance.”

“No. Thank you.”

Arya didn’t pursue it. “I’ll be off, then.” She strode out of the room so quickly she seemed to stir the air in her wake. A moment later, the inn door creaked open then closed behind her. 


	8. Chapter 8

They were alone. 

The last time they’d been alone together in a room had been the morning he’d left her. Sleeping, or so he’d thought. He’d watched her so long before he rose from bed that he’d almost talked himself into staying. Curling himself around her body, waking her with caresses, burying himself inside her until he was lost entirely. 

The moment had passed. He’d left their room. She’d made it out in time to make a scene, which had only been fair. It painted him the villain he was, to have everyone see his callousness and her despair. He’d played that up, because at that point being cruel seemed the kindest course. It would put all sympathy with her, rally her friends to support her even more ferociously. 

He had even hated her a little then, for being so hard to leave. For having become a glowing vision in the snow instead of an oafish, ugly, object of scorn. For feeling like home. He’d used that hate to propel himself away from her, but it had barely carried him out the gate before fading in a rush of pain that echoed hers. 

And now here they were again. Alone together, but not the same people they had been the last time. 

Jaime shifted his cloak to rest more squarely on his shoulders. “Time to go?”

Brienne pointed to the cakes. “You should take those. No sense in wasting them. And anything else you’d like to bring. Now that you’re...baking.”

“Believe me, nobody is more surprised than I. The first several efforts were truly disastrous. Turns out I’m better at griddle cakes than flatbread.” He leaned down for the cellar door handle and hauled upward, letting the door swing over and fall open with a now familiar slam. Foolish to make such a noise, perhaps, but he had no way to shift his grip and prevent the heavy wood from falling once he’d pulled it past the point of no return. 

Fortunately there were some sacks in the cellar, including the one he’d emptied of flour in his first fumbling attempts at baking. He used it to wrap up the honey jar tightly, then shoved that into a burlap sack along with the crock of dried fruits, a string of slightly withered onions, and the leather pouch containing the last of the salt. Without a light, he didn’t care to investigate any deeper into the cellar for further supplies. 

It was an awkward climb back out holding the bag, but he managed. Brienne obligingly closed the trap as he wrestled with the nearly full bag of flour he’d opened only that morning. Once that was in the large sack he finished by adding a small, tightly corked flagon of cooking oil from the table. 

Brienne seemed bemused. “Is that everything?”

Well she might wonder. He had surprised himself with his baking success. “Something to tie this off with?”

She glanced around the kitchen, frowning. Finally she picked up the floury cloth and used her knife to notch the edge so she could cut a long strip from the edge. She tied up the bag, then hefted it over her shoulder and gave him a nod before walking out. 

His horse had indeed benefitted from the days of rest and the oats Jaime had discovered in a covered jar in the tack box that filled one corner of the rough stables next to the inn. She was still a fleabitten, knock-kneed nag, but at least winter had reduced the number of actual fleas, and the pittance of withered hay remaining in the back of the stable loft had somehow lasted until Brienne’s appearance. Though the mare seemed to take offense at being saddled, she kept up well enough with Brienne’s horse on the road and on the snowy, wooded trails Jaime was almost glad to return to after so many days of inaction. 

He told himself he would wait for Brienne to speak. In his experience, she had always broken first. Now, though, she seemed made of stronger stuff. And she’d been alarmingly strong to begin with. 

After perhaps an hour of riding—perhaps less, probably less—Jaime could take the silence no longer. 

“How long will it take us to get there?”

She glanced at him over her shoulder, then returned her eyes to the path ahead. “I’m not sure.” 

“You do know where we’re going, though?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Good, good. Oh.” Gods, why was he just now thinking of it? “Who’s King? What happened?”

Brienne said nothing for a moment or two, long enough for Jaime to grow uneasy. When she finally spoke, she sounded as though she expected a difficult response from him and had steeled herself for it. “Bran Stark is King.” 

A high, keen buzz clouded Jaime’s hearing and vibrated along his cheekbones. “Bran Stark.” 

“Brandon Stark, first of his name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Six Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. Bran the Broken. Good King Bran.” 

_The broken._

Jaime swallowed. His head was full of sound, of visions, of too many implications for him to think through. A push, a fall, a failure in a lifelong string of failures, Cersei rolling her eyes.

In desperation, he grabbed at the one remotely safe phrase she’d uttered. “The Six Kingdoms?”

She looked at him over her shoulder again, eyeing him as though he’d grown a second head. “That’s your question?”

Jaime shrugged. 

The trail was wide enough. Brienne slowed until she was riding abreast of him, knee to knee. “The Six Kingdoms. Sansa Stark will be Queen in the North. She departs for Winterfell tomorrow for her coronation. Jon Snow—Aegon Targaryen—has returned to the Wall. Your brother is Hand to King Bran.”

“That’s no surprise.” 

“He tends to wind up as Hand wherever he goes. Although…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Jaime was well aware that “nothing” meant “something,” but he left it for later discussion. “And you?”

She sighed. “Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.” 

The keening in his brain settled behind his eyes, prickling his nose. “Of course. You’ll be very good at that. Congratulations, Lord Commander.”

“Thank you, Ser.” She seemed to catch her mistake, then shook it off. Jaime wished he could shake it off so easily. He didn’t know who he was, if he was no longe Ser Jaime Lannister. “It will mean I can’t get away from King’s Landing very often.”

A clump of snow fell off a branch ahead of them. Brienne’s body came to full alert, her sword hand ready, her head high. She was different without armor, more wary and quick. Jaime could see her breath racing faster with each clouded puff, and wanted to tell her to breathe out, to control the instinct to panic. But she stood down before he had the chance. She relaxed visibly, rolling her shoulders slightly. 

She didn’t need him. 

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No.” Another puff, quick and sharp. “Maybe later. I told you to bring things for baking, why would I do that if I planned to kill you right away?”

“If you’re planning to take me someplace to make me work as a baker, please kill me now.” 

“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction,” she hissed. 

_Ah._

After another few paces, he pushed back against the silence again. “Why not finally call it the Eight Kingdoms? It was nine before, or it might as well have been. Bran Stark could have expanded the empire by simply counting properly. It seems he’s as bad at arithmetic as his predecessors.” 

“Why didn’t Cersei claim nine kingdoms then? She had the chance, was she bad at arithmetic too?” 

Brienne’s words bit colder than the wind. But she clearly felt _something_.

“Do you know,” Jaime drawled, “she never even thought of it.”

“And you never thought to tell her?”

“She wouldn’t have listened to me,” Jaime said. The singing in his ears and skull had subsided, condensing into a dull pain between his eyes. He wished she had left him back in the kitchen, where the most difficult equation was the proper ratio of honey and eggs to flour.

Brienne didn’t reply. She let her horse edge ahead of his. 

After another few minutes of silence, Jaime looped the reins around his right elbow, and pulled his scarf up over his mouth and nose again, tugging it into place where it wanted to catch on his beard. 

* * *

Silence. Cold. Memories. Resentment. 

She should have killed him the moment she’d seen him again outside Sansa’s camp. Or let Arya kill him. He knew too much. He’d been too tangled up in Cersei’s machinations. 

Eight kingdoms. Tyrion had raised the same question before Bran’s coronation. Bran had given that strange, faraway smile and shaken his head. 

“The people knew there were seven kingdoms. Now they will know there are six because the North is independent again, and they will know Westeros is at peace. The number doesn’t matter, only that they don’t go hungry.”

“And what of the people of Essos?” Tyrion had countered. “Six is less than seven. You will have lost an entire kingdom by their reckoning.” But he didn’t seem particularly concerned about it. More curious than anything. Testing, seeing how this new King would speak his empire into being. 

“But my people will still have defeated the Dragon Queen. And a Stark will reign in the North, just as in the Six Kingdoms. They will see a brother and sister triumphant, dividing the spoils of this war.” 

“And the wildlings?”

Bran had turned his glassy eyes on Tyrion, and even from across the room Brienne had seen that those eyes held the whole of the North, and the land beyond. 

“The Starks will rule all of Westeros. The wildlings will not venture south of the Wall again.”

And that had been that. 

Her greatest fear and her greatest comfort were now combined. Bran Stark had to know that Jaime lived, and perhaps even that she was harboring him, because he seemed to know everything that had ever happened, perhaps everything that would ever happen, in Westeros. 

But Bran seemed supremely uninterested in politics or subterfuge. If he knew Jaime lived, and had not acted on that knowledge, Brienne thought it unlikely he planned to hold it over her or demand she produce Jaime for judgment. 

Now, shivering despite layers of fabric and fur, Brienne risked a quick look at her riding companion. He had masked his face in wool again, shielding himself with his scarf. Fine particles of ice coated the fabric, and the hood of his cloak cast a deep shadow over his eyes. 

She thought of his arms around her as they knelt in the snow, the heat of his breath, the vicious cold when they’d separated. Her skin seemed to long for him, despite the best efforts of her mind and heart. 

Brienne’s new property was only a few leagues from the abandoned hamlet where Jaime had hidden, north of the Blackwater Rush, but still well southwest of King’s Landing. The house was nestled in a pocket of the Kingswood inconveniently far from town, bridge, and road. A forgotten spot that even the game didn’t favor, which explained in part why the former hunting lodge had never been used much, except sometimes to quarter mistresses or second families of wealthy men in King’s Landing who wanted to keep their wives ignorant. 

Although Brienne hadn’t wanted to press Tyrion for more information, she had to wonder if his lover would have been happy at the lodge. It was roomy enough, but rustic, and isolated by design. The nearest village was not close enough to be convenient, and there were no neighboring homes. 

To her relief, when she’d traveled there two nights earlier to confirm the location, there hadn’t even been any squatters save for a belligerent family of stoats nesting in the woodpile. The house was intact, though its roof could stand some repair in places. The well was uncovered and full of frozen debris, the stables would need extensive cleaning, but all in all the place was habitable. 

Approaching it through the woods by mid-morning light, Brienne saw more signs of neglect and disrepair. If Jaime noticed too, he said nothing. Only looked around as they pulled up in the wide yard between house and stable, then dismounted and scanned the layout again. She couldn’t read his face behind the scarf. 

“I haven’t had time to prepare much.” She slid off her horse and pulled down the sack of food and her panniers. “But there should be enough to hold you until the caretakers arrive.” She shoved the sack at Jaime, then marched toward the lodge door with him close at heel. 

“Caretakers? Or prison guards?”

“Caretakers. A housekeeper and a man-of-all-work. I’ve sent to Tarth for them. They should be here in a few weeks if the weather stays mild enough to allow their crossing.”

After managing the door latch with one hand so she knew it could be done, Brienne gestured to Jaime to precede her inside. 


	9. Chapter 9

When he’d first arrived at the lodge, he’d mainly felt relied at being out of the wind. The space itself hardly mattered, which was just as well since it was too dim inside to see much. 

A month later, walking into the warmth of the house felt almost like coming home. He wasn’t sure, because he only recalled feeling truly at home twice in his life, and one of those was when he was very young. But there was a rightness here, a comfort. A sense of certainty. Which was ridiculous, considering the owner of the place might decide her next visit would be the one where she finally decided to end him. But he felt that way, nevertheless. 

The sound of voices coming from the kitchen still startled him, although his new housemates had arrived nearly a week ago. Brienne had arrived with them, stayed barely long enough to introduce them, and then returned to King’s Landing without staying the night. 

He hadn’t expected to enjoy the company. The couple had never left Tarth before, had hardly known the world outside Evenfall existed. Bess, who cooked and kept house, was sturdy and ruddy and determined to be cheerful about the cold. Her husband Cam, the man-of-all-work, had managed to repair the lodge’s roof within two days of arriving and do a great many other odd jobs that needed two hands, but seemed most content when resting by the kitchen hearth and chatting companionably with his wife. 

From the smell of things, Bess was baking bread. Jaime’s stomach rumbled, reminding him he’d eaten only a handful of nuts that morning before heading into the woods. 

He made for the kitchen with the pair of hares he’d managed to trap. At the threshold of the room, a wave of warmth and good smells crashed softly into him, along with a pair of amiable greetings. 

“For you.” He lifted the hares for Bess’s inspection. 

“Those will do nicely, Jay.” She took them with a smile. “A welcome change from dried meat.”

“My pleasure.” He caught himself, and tempered his voice before he spoke to Cam. “I dragged part of a deadfall to the head of the trail. It’ll only be good for kindling but the trunk is still out there, it could make firewood.”

“How far is it?” 

“Not far. Less than a mile.”

Cam nodded but didn’t budge from the settle. “You can show me tomorrow.”

That was both a good and a bad thing about this new life Jaime was leading, as Jay Waters the groundskeeper at the least used hunting lodge in the Seven—or Six—Kingdoms. There never seemed to be any rush. Nobody was ever in a hurry to do anything. He had gone overnight from a state of almost constant urgency to one of...contentment? Was that what this was? 

It was like boredom, only pleasant. 

He didn’t trust pleasant things. In Jaime’s experience, they never stayed pleasant for long. He had no idea how to take comfort in comfort. 

But he was willing to learn. 

With a vague plan made for them to retrieve the promising source of firewood the next day, Jaime secured a hunk of fresh bread and a small wedge of cheese and left his new colleagues to their conversation. 

He was already in his bedchamber, settling in a chair to enjoy his repast, when he heard hoofbeats. 

Heart pounding, he stifled the urge to dig his sword out of the trunk at the foot of his bed. His room was at the back of the house, with the other servants’ quarters, but he’d left his door open. From the window in the hallway he could spot a corner of the yard. 

Cam was already outside, greeting the visitor. When he stepped to one side, Jaime could see enough of the horse to recognize the distinctive saddle. 

_Tyrion_. 

Of course. The one thing Jaime could never seem to leave completely behind was his family. 

* * * * *

  
  


“Ah. Never mind,” Tyrion said.”I believe that fellow there already knows the ins and outs of my saddle. He can assist me.”

Tyrion smiled at Jaime blandly, implicitly dismissing the man who’d been first to greet him. 

His brother took the reins from the rough domestic and nodded him away. “I can manage. We’ll need to ready the second chamber, opposite Ser Brienne’s.”

“I won’t be staying,” Tyrion said. Not that it wouldn’t have been nice to rest before the ride back to King’s Landing, but he couldn’t risk being away that long. 

“My Lord.” The man bowed himself away, seeming perfectly glad to return to the warm glow of the house and leave the unexpected bit of work to Jaime. 

_ Jay _ , he reminded himself. And never “brother.”

“There’s a block in the stables,” Jaime said, leading the horse in that direction. 

The kindness was unexpected. Tyrion had resigned himself to choosing between a long drop to the ground or allowing somebody to hoist him from the saddle. 

Still, the dismounting process was ungainly. He talked throughout, hoping Jaime would pretend to ignore the awkward maneuvering. 

“The house has held up better than I feared. This is a lovely place when it isn’t frozen solid.”

“Yes, I’m sure it’s all wildflowers and songbirds.”

“It is, actually.” Tyrion had wanted to see Shae surrounded by bucolic loveliness. Pity he hadn’t stuck to that plan. “If memory serves, there’s even a nearby babbling brook.”

“If Brienne lets me live until spring, I’m sure I’ll find it charming.”

Tyrion finished clambering down from the mounting block then looked up at Jaime sharply. “What makes you think she’s going to kill you?” 

“What makes you think she isn’t? She has enough reason.”

If that had been sufficient motivation for Brienne, Jaime wouldn’t have survived their meeting outside Sansa’s encampment. But Jaime always had liked feeling sorry for himself. 

“Get the flask out of my saddlebag,” Tyrion asked, pointing to the bag in question. 

Jaime obliged, then gestured towards an empty stall. “I can put him up?” 

“By all means.”

Tyrion found a bale of straw to sit on, then uncorked the flask as he watched Jaime work. With the first pull of the specially fortified wine, he felt some of his stiffness ease. 

After very little time, Jaime broke the silence. “Why are you here?”

“It’s good to see you too.” It wasn’t a lie. He was glad to see his brother alive with his own two eyes, despite everything. “We were getting along so well before you left Winterfell. Perhaps I wanted more of that unique filial companionship.”

That wasn’t why he was there, but it could have been. 

Jaime eyed him over the stall door. “You’re lying.”

“You’re growing blunt as you age. It’s refreshing.” Another lie. If anything, Jaime sounded more like Brienne, whose bluntness could tip over into tedium in the space of a heartbeat.

Jaime returned to his work, easing the bridle off the horse then bringing it with him out of the stall to hang it on a convenient hook. When he spotted what was in Tyrion’s hand he finished up quickly, latching the stall door before joining him on the straw bale. 

“What is that?” He reached toward the flask.

Tyrion handed it over, but held up a finger in warning. “It’s medicinal.” 

Jaime swirled a sip in his mouth, looking thoughtful. He swallowed then took another small swig before returning the flask to Tyrion. Tyrion could see the moment when Samwell Tarly’s potion hit his brother’s senses. 

Jaime blinked, inhaled, then exhaled slowly. “What is that?” 

“Our new Grandmaester prescribes it for my aching bones.”

“Can he send me some? My bones ache too. You haven’t answered my question.”

Tyrion sighed. “Why am I here? I might as well ask you why you’re here.”

“You know why I’m here.” 

“I know why you say you’re here.” 

Jaime cut his eyes toward Tyrion briefly. “And it’s the truth. To me the bigger question is why you’re still in King’s Landing?”

Tyrion corked the flask, then fiddled with the leather thong that secured the cork to the neck. “Where else would the Hand of the King be?” 

“Honestly? I thought you would end up back in Winterfell.”

* * * * *

Jaime saw his brother flinch, so minutely and subtly he doubted anyone else would have spotted it. He’d hit his mark. 

To Tyrion’s credit, he hardly paused before replying. 

“Whatever for? It’s cold enough in King’s Landing at the moment to freeze my balls without any help from the North.” After taking another slug of wine, Tyrion glanced toward Jaime with a grimace.”Besides, who could take my place? I’m the hand and legs of the King, those don’t grow on trees.”

“The king could surely find better legs, at least.”

“You of all people should avoid making jests about the king’s legs, brother.”

Jaime gestured in concession of the point. “There must be candidates. He’ll already know which are the trustworthy ones, What about Brienne? There’s nobody more reliable.” Not that she would ever give up command of the Kingsguard. 

“Indeed. She is noble to a fault,” Tyrion shifted on the bale, settling the flask next to him, crossing his legs and flipping his cloak over them. “However, she lacks the necessary propensities for the job. The Hand has to deal in all the gray areas the King can’t afford to acknowledge. In my experience, the Lord Commander has no affinity for moral ambiguity. Present company excepted, of course. A circumstance that also suggests she is a terrible judge of character.”

Jaime snorted. Tyrion was right on all counts. But he would have had similar objections to any name Jaime proposed, most likely. “Perhaps the King would give you a leave of absence,”

Tyrion echoed his snort as only a brother could. “And how do you propose I raise this subject with our all-seeing, all-knowing sovereign? Your Grace, please grant me leave to travel to Winterfell and try to woo your sister? I know you already know the outcome, so if I’m to be successful, I beg you try not to picture anything too clearly. It’s been a long time and I’m not the man I once was. And let us not forget—with all due respect—she is is his sister. Most men wouldn’t welcome that line of thought,”

“Presumably he has already seen it all if it’s to be seen. So it does you no harm to ask.” The sister comment wasn’t worth dignifying with an answer.

“I didn’t realize you were so deeply invested in my remarrying.”

Jaime pursed his lips. “You’re the only one left to carry the name.” 

“Ah.” His brother leaned back against the stone wall of the stable, tenting his fingers over his belly and staring at the tips. “I don’t know that I care to continue the name. Let some obscure cousin rise up from the ashes and carry the line. Or let it die with us, for all I care.”

A pang gripped Jaime’s throat. He’d failed to give the family heirs, choosing to let his children bear another man’s name for the sake of the sister he’d thought mattered more than the rest of them. And even those children, their children who were Lannisters in all but name, were gone now. Brienne couldn’t marry, wouldn’t have his children. The chance to see any young Lannisters ever again would indeed die with them, if Tyrion chose not to wed. And Jaime couldn’t see him settling for some woman who wasn’t Sansa. She wasn’t the kind of woman a man stopped being in love with. And he knew Tyrion loved her, whether his brother had ever admitted it to himself or not. 

He picked up the flask, uncorked it again, and took a swallow of the doctored wine to ease his spirit. “You’re probably right. It’s probably for the best.” Because there was nothing he could do to change it anyway. He could only be sad about it and hope the sadness would pass over time. 

“Speaking of family…” Tyrion left the table to stand near the fire, warming his hands. “I’ve been in communication with the Iron Bank. I have funds to disburse or invest for you, as you choose. I have also gained control of certain...other accounts. If you have any instructions to pass on, regarding those…?"

_Damn_. 

At least now he knew why Tyrion was here. And he was glad he had no idea where their sister had ended up, because Tyrion might not want to see Jaime dead but that sentiment almost certainly didn’t extend to Cersei.

“If anybody can find out where she is, other than your King, it would be the Iron Bank. You have but to tell them she lives and they’ll do the rest.” Jaime pushed himself up from the bale. He brushed straw from his clothing and wished he’d taken a longer pull from the flask. “Did the King tell you our dear sister was alive, or did you work it out for yourself?” 

“There wasn’t much to work out. If you were alive, so was she.” 

“So the king knows. But you haven’t sent assassins after her? Or could they not find her either?

Tyrion shrugged. “I wanted to. Bran didn’t approve. He said something cryptic about paths intersecting, or perhaps not intersecting, and then told me Cersei would not die at the hands of an assassin.”

“What a delight he must be to converse with.”

“I’ve met worse. At least he has a sense of humor, which is more than I can say about the last monarch I worked for.”

Another mad, beautiful Queen who had let power get the better of her.

Jaime was more concerned with the very sane, dangerous knight who had yet to figure out what Tyrion had. 

“Brienne doesn’t know Cersei’s alive,” he blurted. 

“Oh, dear.” Tyrion sat up, brow furrowing.

“She can’t know.” Jaime’s heart beat too fast, and blood thrummed in his ears. “You can’t tell her. I will kill you if I have to.”

He wouldn’t. And his brother knew he wouldn’t. Once upon a time, maybe. But now they both knew better. Tyrion slipped down from his seat on the straw and faced Jaime, shaking his head. 

“She’ll find out sooner or later. And then what will you do?”


End file.
